No initial link for this article (what I typed below is from the 6/14/01 BPI Solid Waste Report). The backdrop is ongoing public meetings sponsored by EPA to hash out some guidelines on how to handle wood treated with the pesticide chromium copper arsenate (CCA). IMO it reflects a very credible series of studies that CCA-treated wood DOES leach toxic chemicals, and in fact the wood waste itself meets the standard of hazardous waste. Organic Gardening magazine, among others, have tried for years to try to convince folks not to use CCA-treated wood near their vegetable gardens. Apparently the American Wood Preservers Institute has proposed a voluntary program to apprise consumers of the product’s risks, which itself is a huge admission. “…About 17 percent of all softwood lumber is pressure-treated, most of it with CCA. And while treated wood may require special handling, disposing of it has been called its Achilles heel. The Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisc., estimates that 2.5 billion board feet per year of treated-wood products enter the solid waste stream, and that that level will increase to eight billion board feet per year by 2020.

A more recent Florida study estimates the state has 26,800 tons of CCA-related arsenic - enough to increase the arsenic concentration of Lake Okeechobee’s level 650 times.

Florida began serious research on CCA-treated wood four years ago after the St. Petersburg Tims brought the issue to national attention. Representatives from the University of Florida, the Florida Department of Agriculture, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission have attended EPA’s meetings.

The Florida study says standardized leaching tests showed that CCA-treated wood leaches enough arsenic to routinely fail EPA’s Toxic Characteristic Leaching Procedure [a test of whether something qualifies as hazardous waste] and would have to be handled as hazardous waste if it weren’t for its having been granted a regulatory exemption.

It also emphasizes the need to better manage disposal of CCA-treated wood. The tests and other information on CCA-treated wood can be found at http://www.ccaresearch.org/.”

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2001

Answers

Our sanitation workers won't take your wheelie bin contents if they see pressure-treated wood in there; it has to go to the collection points on hazardous waste days along with paint and used oil, etc. I'm sure scraps of treated wood get into the landfill, though, and there's probably a bunch that got in before the prohibition went into effect. I wonder if Hillary Clinton is concerned about it; she keeps talking about arsenic in the water.

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2001

I doubt she has any interest in wood. isn't she the one that sent her husband on a global tour?

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2001